Rock Solid

Last Thursday during our professional development time I used the term Rock Solid to describe effective lessons.  I like this term for many reasons.

·         It has a feeling of permanence and strength.  Rock solid teaching means that day in and day out, students are engaged and learning.  This term speaks to consistency and strength.    

·         It rolls off the tongue nicely, and you can play with the words: I rocked the class, you rock, you are educational rock stars, I started off rocky and ended up solid….

·         It is what I want people to think of when they think of HSE.  Southeastern is the Rock of Gibraltar.  This is a place that provides solid instruction for our students and is an anchor for the community of Fishers.

Where We Are

You have finished the process of writing Class SLOs.  You are working to get students ready to reach the Mastery Content Score by the time semester final exams roll around, but most of your day-to-day focus is on planning, teaching, and grading.  Your efforts are focused on helping students.

This is exactly how it should be, and it is what Rock Solid teaching is all about.  You do the little things right every day.  You take care of details.  You make sure lessons are ready and the activities are thoughtful.  You find ways to push the top students and catch the ones who are falling.  You grade papers and get them back on time.  You call parents and contact counselors when needed.  This is rock solid teaching. 

On the Teacher Effectiveness Rubric, “Effective” is Rock Solid, and it is not easy.  It takes determination, effort, and perseverance.  It means doing the right things for the right reasons: because it helps students learn and grow.  That is, however, why you became a teacher.  And Rock Solid Teaching is the reason HSEHS is considered one of the top high schools in the state and in the nation.

You rock, HSE.

Have a great week.

Phil

I Taught My Dog to Whistle

Before reading further, think about this statement: The focus of our efforts at Hamilton Southeastern High School must be primarily on student learning rather than on teaching. 

About five years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Lindsay High School in the San Joaquin Valley, just south of Fresno, California. 

Lindsay is a school that is very different from Southeastern, but I met some outstanding and innovative educators on that visit.  They were working closely with Robert Marzano and Associates and were trying to turn around a school that by all accounts was struggling.  Perhaps the most daring move they made was to put every student on an individualized learning plan that included advancement and the granting of course credit based on performance.  Lindsay was all about what the student learned.

In fact, they didn't call the kids “students.”  They were “learners,” and the teachers were “learning facilitators.”  If you can get over the awkwardness of the titles, the intent is excellent.

For good reason, we tend to focus on what and how we are teaching.  This is not a bad thing.  We should always strive to improve our teaching.  In fact, I believe that the Teacher Effectiveness Rubric and the TEDS process emphasizes improved teaching.  The TER requires us to be very, very intentional and reflective about what we teach and how we teach it.

The issue is, of course, that regardless of how we teach it, if the students don’t learn it, we haven’t really accomplished much.  This is exactly why the TER pushes so hard for monitoring student progress.  Monitoring progress is found all over the rubric:

·         Competency 1.2: Set measurable achievement goals

·         Competency 1.4: Create objective-driven lesson plans and assessments

·         Competency 1.5: Track student data and analyze progress

·         Competency 2.1: Develop student understanding and mastery of lesson objectives

·         Competency 2.4: Check for understanding

·         Competency 2.5: Modify instruction as needed

I’ll give you hint: Don’t wait for the final exam to check how students are doing on your Class Student Learning Objective.  This semester, it will pay dividends for your students—and for you—to give multiple formative assessments.  Formative assessments are those that students complete without risk.  They may or may not be formal assessments.  (Note the difference between “formative” and “formal.”) 

Formative assessments tell you if your teaching is resulting in student learning.  It gives you a chance to adjust instruction.

John Hattie, a widely published education professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia, said, “The mistake I was making was seeing feedback as something teachers provide to students….It was only when I discovered that feedback was most powerful when it is from the student to the teacher that I started to understand it better.”  He is talking about formative assessments--feedback from the students to the teacher.

The trouble with formative feedback, however, is that it requires you to adjust your teaching to meet the needs of the learner and supports Robert Marzano’s interesting take on how often you should give formative assessments.  His response to that question:  “As often as you are willing to change your instruction.”

It’s true that we may not be able to teach a dog to whistle, but we certainly can improve student performance when we know exactly what they need in order to take the next step.  Avoid whistling in the dark, HSE.  Check often where students are in their learning, and then make adjustments to ensure they reach the learning targets.

Have a great week.

Phil

An Arranged Marriage

As often as I can I listen to StoryCorps on National Public Radio.  One of the episodes that still comes to mind occasionally has to do with arranged marriages.  A daughter-in-law who did not have an arranged marriage interviews her mother-in-law whose marriage was arranged.  Sulochana Konur tells the story of how two months after meeting her future husband at the age of 15, she was married.  Almost 40 years later, they remain so.

At the end of the interview, Mrs. Konur gives advice to her daughter-in-law.  These aren’t the exact words, but I think this is the point she makes: I didn’t make the choice to marry, but that doesn’t make it easier or harder.  You will also have to find your own way.  As you are married, you have to grow together regardless of how you became married.  I’ll return to this concept later.

Set High Expectations for Academic Success: Rock Solid Teaching

The last competency on the TER is Competency 2.9.  It is interesting because it seems to repeat many other areas in the rubric, especially when you examine only the “Effective” category.  Look at these indicators and note some of the connections to other competencies:

Effective

·         Teacher sets high expectations for students of all levels. Similar to: 2.1—Mastery and understanding of lesson objectives, 2.5—Teacher does not give up, 2.6—Accessible but Rigorous Work

·         Students are invested in their work and value academic success as evidenced by their effort and quality of their work.  Similar to: 2.3—Engagement, 2.6—Student perseverance, 2.7—Students on task, 2.8—Students are invested in the success of their peers

·         The classroom is a safe place to take on challenges or risk failure.  Similar to: 2.8—Safe and positive environment, 2.5—Teacher scaffolds students

·         Teachers expect students to respond to questioning and to generate their own conclusions. Similar to: 2.2—Students ask higher-order questions, 2.4—Teacher checks for understanding, 2.6—Students are required to support arguments,

·         Teacher celebrates and/or recognizes high quality work.  Similar to: 2.6—Teacher highlights student work that meets high expectations, 2.8—Positive classroom environment

Certainly, this overlap of competencies reinforces what I have been saying about how the same lesson can have multiple “hits” on the TER.  Make no mistake about it: An “Effective” lesson is rock solid teaching.   If your lesson is effective, it will show up in this competency and many other places on the rubric. 

The indictors for “Highly Effective,” however, go beyond rock solid.  Take a look at the “Highly Effective” indicators for 2.9:

Highly Effective: For Level 4, much of the Level 3 evidence is observed during the year, as well as some of the following:

·         Students participate in forming academic goals for themselves and analyzing their progress.

·         Student comments and actions demonstrate that they are excited about their work and understand the relevance of their learning.

To reach “Highly Effective” on this competency, students must do much of the work.  They must set academic goals and analyze their own progress.  This is not a new concept.  It has been around for as long as I have been teaching and probably long before that.  In the late 90s and early 00s, the Best Practice folks (Zemmelman, Daniels, and Hyde) were pushing for it, and more recently, Robert Marzano has documented the impact of student involvement in setting and tracking learning goals.

Most students, however, will not be able to do this on their own.  These are skills that must be taught, but it is time well spent.  When I first started as an administrator, I worked with a teacher who took this process to heart.  He developed learning goals for his students who were predominantly at-risk and low achievers, taught them to develop their own academic goals, and had them track their own progress.  He also had students track the correlation between effort and results.  The outcomes of this informal field-test were overwhelmingly positive.  Students became more invested in their learning, they consistently worked harder and performed better, they became aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, and they saw the correlation between effort and results.  It was hard and sometimes frustrating work, but it changed the teacher’s approach to teaching.

My point:  You will “hit” in the “Effective” category on this competency with lots of different activities.  In order to trend up this competency from “Effective” to “Highly Effective,” a teacher must do much more than set goals and tell students what they are.  It will involve teaching students to set their own goals and monitor their own learning.  It means finding ways to get students invested in the learning because it has personal meaning and relevance.

An Arranged Marriage:

That is it, Southeastern.  We have made it through all nine competencies in Domain 2 of the Teacher Effectiveness Rubric.  Yes, this was an arranged marriage, but I think we may learn to love her/him yet!  (I told you I would get back to you on this one.)

Now begins the work of growing together. 

Have a great week.

Phil

It's No Joke

Competency 2.8: Create a safe and positive classroom environment in a culture of respect and collaboration

This past week a teacher sent me a great—and timely—article from the editorial pages of the New York Times on the links between childhood trauma and adult outcomes.  If you get a chance, click on the following link and read the short editorial and focus on the significance of a safe and positive classroom to a student who has had any type of trauma as a child: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/opinion/brooks-the-psych-approach.html?hp 

Here is the kicker: I contend that sitting in all of our classrooms, whether we know it are not, are students who fit this description.  For these students, a safe and positive classroom is not just a good idea; it is essential for them to learn.

What does a safe and positive classroom actually look like?  What would an observer see and be able to document in a room that has a culture of respect and collaboration?  These are the questions that must be answered in order to score this competency.

I have intentionally stayed away from the “Improvement Necessary” and “Ineffective” indicators during these emails about the Teacher Effectiveness Rubric, but today I am going to make an exception.  I want to make two points, one focusing on the negative and one focusing on the positive.  Then I will end with the indicators for this competency.  I am very interested in hearing your feedback on this topic, so let me know what you think after you have finished reading.

The Negative: Sarcasm

One of the indicators in the “Ineffective” category speaks directly to sarcasm, and many of the others refer to respect and collaboration, or rather lack thereof.  I will deal with collaboration and respect in the next section, but I want to make one point about sarcasm.  The longer I am in education, the more convinced I am that sarcasm has no place in school.  I want to state that as clearly as I can because I recognize that some of you may disagree. 

Sarcasm is so prevalent, so ubiquitous, in mass and social media that we may find it easy to overlook the dangers.  Sarcasm takes the format of a joke, and it gets laughs, so it seems harmless.  The reality is, however, that sarcasm only “works” if it embarrasses someone.  Furthermore, it has tremendous potential to be misunderstood because it always contains a “hidden message.”  The students most likely to misunderstand the intent of the sarcastic statement are those students who process information slowly, have different language or cultural backgrounds, or have trouble inferring (such as a student on the autism spectrum). 

Even if a student isn’t the direct target of the sarcasm, many students will internalize the embarrassment and will choose to avoid risks.  All of us have experienced times where we hoped someone was joking but we weren’t sure.  What we are most likely to do in a case like this is to shut down and avoid drawing attention to our lack of understanding, which is the last thing we want to happen with students in our classes. 

I am aware of the counter-arguments, and you may be able to convince me that sarcasm between two equals is appropriate.  The problem is, of course, that teachers and students are not equals.  For good reason, there is an imbalance of power.  So I have come to the conclusion that when sarcasm is used in school two things happen: First, if you choose to use it, it will, eventually and inevitably be misunderstood and come back to bite you.  Second, it will hurt students you least suspect and in ways you can’t guess. 

Okay, I will now step off my soapbox….

The Positive: Respect and Collaboration

Not long into my teaching career, I came to the unsettling realization that as a teacher I cannot make students do anything.  (By the way, I learned this lesson again when I became an administrator.) It was a bit of a shock, but it did change my perspective.  Certainly, I can encourage, nudge, create consequences, and influence choices, but the bottom line is that everyone, including students, has free will.  This is not to say that we should lower our expectations, but rather emphasizes that we will have much better results with the positive approach that keeps students with us and does not create an adversarial relationship

Creating a safe and positive classroom environment is all about intentionally being in the learning process with the students.  One of the catch phrases in education right now is Professional Learning Communities.  The phrase may be overused, but the concept is absolutely correct.  Southeastern High School is and should be a learning community—for students and teachers.  This competency is about creating the feeling of community in your classroom.  When you make known that your room is a place where the students and the teacher live and work together, and it is a good place to be, you are trending up on the rubric.  The brain research is crystal clear and reinforced by the Times editorial mentioned earlier: If students do not feel safe, they learn less.  Creating a feeling of safety must be a top priority for all of us.

What do you do to make your classroom feel like a community, a place where you are on the learning journey with and for each other?  Look at the indicators below.  Focus on the key words and phrases: respect, collaboration, rapport, genuine interest, invested. As an experienced observer, I can tell you that it is relatively easy to see and document mutual respect in a classroom.  It is clear by comments and actions when students are invested in the success of their peers, and it is obvious when a teacher is genuinely interested and likes his or her students.

Here are the Indicators for 2.8:

Effective

·         Teacher creates and maintains a safe and positive classroom environment that is conducive to learning.

·         Students are respectful of their teacher and peers.

·         Students are given the opportunities to collaborate and support each other in the learning process.

·         Teacher reinforces positive character and behavior and uses consequences appropriately to discourage negative behavior.

·         Teacher has a good rapport with students, and shows genuine interest in their thoughts and opinions.

·         Teacher demonstrates a genuine interest in student academic goals and activities outside of school.

Highly Effective

·         Teacher models respect and demonstrates positive character traits.

·         Students are invested in the academic success of their peers as evidenced by unprompted collaboration and assistance.

·         Students reinforce positive character and behavior and discourage negative behavior amongst themselves.

Send me your responses, Southeastern.  Sarcastic or otherwise, I am interested to hear your thoughts to both the positive and negative sections above.

Have a great week.

Phil

Time Flies....

Competency 2.7: Classroom Management and Maximizing Instructional Time.

Words of wisdom from some great minds on the use of time:

·          “How did it get so late so soon?” Dr. Seuss

·         “I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”  JRR Tolkein

·         “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” William Penn

Philosophy and Planning: A Sense of Urgency about Time

The starting point for good classroom management is the belief that your time with students is a precious commodity.  Pick any one of your classes and think about how much you want each student to know and be able to do by the end of the semester.  Think about the level of mastery you expect and start breaking down the semester by unit and lesson.  Then think about how little time you actually have with students in your room: about 50 minutes a day for 90 days.  That doesn’t give much time, and it certainly doesn’t give time to waste. 

On the daily level, this means that how you plan to use each period is critical.  Each class needs to have worth and value.  Every minute is important.  You need to make the most of the little time you have together with students because time is gold.  You can’t afford to throw it away.  When teachers have this sense of urgency and get students to buy in—the hard part—classroom management issues tend to go away. 

The beginning of class might sound something like this: “Welcome back to class.  We have lots to do today, but your hard work is going to pay off…”  That gets you off and running.  The end of the day might sound like this: “That’s the bell.  Nice work today.  We’ll pick up first thing tomorrow with…”

Here are some thoughts on what might help with competency 2.7:

In the Classroom: Sweat the Details in Order Use Time Well

Jacob Kounin coined the phrase “withitness,” but I first heard this phrase from Robert Marzano.  Kounin defines withitness as “a teacher’s ability to correct misbehavior before it gets out of control and before other students in the class see it and also begin to do it.”  Part of withitness has to do with your awareness of what is going on in your classroom, but your planning and attention to detail are equally, if not more, important.

·         Teach procedures and routines: What should students do when they enter your room?  Where do they hand in papers?  How do you efficiently pass out materials?  All of these common procedures should be taught, so students know exactly what to do during a normal class.  Put in time up front teaching procedures and routines, and you’ll save time later.

·         Pay attention to transitions: Moving from one activity to another can and will lose time, but this loss of instruction time can be kept to a minimum and the momentum of a lesson carried from one activity to the next.  I’ve been in classrooms where transitions seem almost choreographed.  It is a beautiful thing to watch a class flow smoothly from one task to the next.

·         Keep your toolbox full and ready: When you have five minutes or ten minutes, how can you use the “free” time most effectively?  Every class has key terms and concepts that need continual review.  Every lesson can be connected to some larger idea.  Be ready to take advantage of unexpected time.  Instead of saying, “That’s it for today,” be ready with, “Good.  We have five minutes left.  I want to see if we can make a connection from today’s lesson to…”

This competency speaks to the sense of urgency associated with time management, and it also has indicators that are all about taking care of the business of running a class smoothly.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Doug Lemov’s Teach Like a Champion is a great resource if you want ideas that will help with classroom management.  Some of his topics that might fit well with this competency: Entry Routine, Tight Transitions, Seat Signals, SLANT, Warm/Strict, Emotional Constancy, Every Minute Matters, and Work the Clock.

Read the indicators from 2.7 and think about what an observer might be able to mark as “hits” in your class today.

Effective

·         Students arrive on-time and are aware of the consequences of arriving tardy.

·         Class starts on-time and continues bell-to-bell.

·         Routines, transitions, and procedures are well-executed.  Students know what they are supposed to be doing and when with minimal prompting from the teacher.

·         There is only a brief period of time where students are not engaged in meaningful work.

·         Almost all students are on-task and follow instructions of teacher without much prompting.

·         Disruptive behaviors and off-task conversations are rare; when they do occur, they are almost always addressed without major interruption to the lesson.

Highly Effective: For Level 4, much of the Level 3 evidence is observed during the year, as well as some of the following:

·         Routines, transitions, and procedures are well-executed.  Students know what they are supposed to be doing and when without prompting from the teacher.

·         Students are always engaged in meaningful work while waiting for the teacher (for example, during attendance).

·         Students share responsibility for operations and routines and work well together to accomplish these tasks.

·         Students are on-task and follow instructions of the teacher without much prompting.

·         Disruptive behaviors and off-task conversations are rare; when they occur, they are addressed without major interruption to the lesson.

·         Teacher has developed clear and efficient procedures for the collection and distribution of student work.  (This includes work for absent students, make-up, etc.)

Preview: Next week, Competency 2.8 is about creating a safe and positive classroom environment and a culture of respect.  I think you will see many, many connections and overlaps between 2.7 and 2.8.

Since I started with a few quotes about time, I thought I might end with some as well.

·         “Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.” Roger Babson

·         “Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.” Groucho Marx

·         “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” Mother Teresa

Let us begin, HSE.  Have a great week.

Phil

Instruction and Work

Competency 2.6

This competency is one that we very easily could spend the entire year exploring.  It is packed full of information and possibilities.  I stood in my office looking through the bookshelves for resources and became almost immobilized.  How do I get a handle on this topic?  People much smarter than I am have written entire books and built entire careers around high-level work and rigorous instruction.

Rather than give up completely, I will leave you with three points and add the Effective and Highly Effective Indicators at the bottom of the page.  This is, I know, inadequate, but I hope it will help you understand a bit more about this competency in the Teacher Effectiveness Rubric.

1.      Class SLOs Help: You are just finishing the process of developing Class Student Learning Objectives (SLOs).  During this past few weeks, you created an assessment which covered all the key standards for the first semester for one course and were asked to examine closely the Depth of Knowledge of each question using four levels: Recall, Skill/Concept, Strategic Thinking, or Extended Thinking.  The point of creating a class SLO is that you should know exactly what you want students to know and be able to do and at what level of understanding.  Paul Bambrick-Soto says, “Standards are meaningless until you define how you will assess them.”  He goes on to make the argument that assessments are not the end of the learning process.  They are where you start—which is exactly what you are doing with SLOs.  Look over your class SLO.  What instruction will you provide and what work will you assign in order to have students to master the material to the depth you are assessing?  If you assess at higher levels, students need to learn how to do the work at higher levels.  Observers will see this in your lessons.

2.      Assignments Matter: This extends my first point about the work you have students do and at what level they complete it.  Think about the rhythm and patterns you have in teaching.  It often follows the “I Do, We Do, You Do” pattern.  You introduce the new learning, show students how and why, help them practice, have them practice with each other, and then have them practice on their own.  Every lesson should include higher level thinking (for example, through questioning or problem-solving) but at certain points in the unit, students need to have opportunities to go beyond and extend.  Eleanor Dougherty, among others, talks about “anchor” assignments in courses.  These aren’t every day assignments.  They are assignments that require application of concepts to new situations.  These are the assignments that will prepare students for Common Core assessments.  These are the assignments that engage students and push them to the next level.  If you have these assignments, they are the times you look forward to with your students because you know it will be great and students will perform at high levels. It is worth looking to see where your anchor assignments are and spending time making these assignments even better. 

3.      Look for Repeats (Power Indicators): I have said this before, but it is worth mentioning again: When a lesson starts “hitting” in one competency, it often picks up many others.  You will find repeats from other competencies in the Effective and Highly Effective indicators listed below.  When you differentiate and give students choices, when you ask probing questions and make students defend their answers, when you give meaningful practice and have them read and write, when you provide exemplars or samples of quality work, and when you can use student interest to engage them in the work, you are “hitting” the power indicators on this competency—and in many others.  Rigorous work and instruction is all about best practice teaching and pushing students to maximize their understanding and achievement.

Here are the indicators for 2.6:

Effective

·         The lesson is accessible and challenging to almost all students.

·         Teacher frequently develops higher-level understanding through effective questioning.

·         Lesson pushes almost all students forward due to differentiation of instruction based on each student’s level of understanding.

·         Students have opportunities to meaningfully practice, apply, and demonstrate that they are learning through assigned work that requires the use of academic skills in relation to course content (critical reading, writing process, or critical thinking).

·         Teacher helps students to persevere even when faced with difficult tasks.

Highly Effective

·         Lesson is accessible and challenging to all students.

·         Students are able to answer higher-level questions with meaningful responses.

·         Students pose higher-level questions to the teacher and to each other.

·         Students are required to form and support arguments through application and evaluation of course content.

·         Teacher highlights student work that meets high expectations.

·         Teacher expects students to resubmit work that does not meet high standards.

·         Teacher encourages students’ interests in learning by providing students with additional opportunities to apply and build skills beyond expected lesson elements.

I am reminded again of Phillip Schlechty, who said that the most important work a teacher does is to design lessons that engage students.  Students do not fully engage until they are given opportunities to rise to a challenge.  They engage when you devise meaningful instruction and work that deepens their understanding and mastery of important ideas and skills. 

Have a great week, Southeastern.

Phil

Modifying Instruction

This competency is the outlier in the nine Instructional competencies, so you might want to read this carefully.  The main difference from this and the other competencies is that a teacher’s score on this competency is dependent on the score from a previous one.  The actual wording:

In order to be scored Effective at this competency, a teacher must have at least scored a 3 [Effective] on Competency 2.4.—In order to modify instruction as needed, one must first know how to check for understanding. 

I stated in previous emails that you would see reoccurring and overlapping indicators.  Differentiation is definitely one of these.  Look through this chart:

Effective (3)	Improvement Necessary (2)	Ineffective (1)
Teacher makes adjustments to instruction based on checks for understanding that lead to increased understanding for most students	Teacher may attempt to make adjustments to instruction based on checks for understanding, but these attempts may be misguided and may not increase understanding for students.	Teacher rarely or never attempts to adjust instruction based on checks for understanding, and any attempts at doing so frequently fail to increase the understanding for students.
Teacher responds to misunderstanding with effective scaffolding techniques.	Teacher may primarily respond to misunderstandings by using teacher-driven scaffolding techniques (for example, re-explaining a concept), when student-driven techniques could have been more effective.	Teacher only responds to misunderstandings by using teacher-driven scaffolding techniques.
Teacher doesn’t give up, but continues to try to address misunderstandings with different techniques if the first try is not successful.	Teacher may persist in using a particular technique for responding to a misunderstanding, even when it is not succeeding.	Teacher repeatedly uses the same technique to respond to misunderstandings, even when it is not succeeding.

Highly Effective (4) adds this: For Level 4, much of the Level 3 evidence is observed during the year, as well as some of the following:

·         Teacher anticipates student misunderstandings and preemptively addresses them.

·         Teacher is able to modify instruction to respond to misunderstandings without taking away from the flow of the lesson or losing engagement.

The notes on the rubric also give some guidance as to how this might look: A teacher can respond to misunderstandings using “scaffolding” techniques such as: activating background knowledge, asking leading questions, breaking the task into small parts, using mnemonic devices or analogies, using manipulatives or hands-on modes, using “think alouds,” providing visual cues, etc.

This competency is all about monitoring student learning and providing interventions in a variety of ways for students who have not mastered the content.  In the classroom, it might sound like this:

·         Adjustments to Instruction: “Yesterday at the end of class I had all of you complete this problem.  It looks like we still have some misunderstanding when it comes to….”

·         Differentiation: “I’m going to work with this group on….The other groups should….”

·         Scaffolding: “You are close, but not quite there yet, Joe.  Keep going.  Remember what Carla said about….”

·         Modeling/Think Aloud: “Let me talk you through my thinking when I see something like this.  Listen to what goes on in my head…”

·         Anticipating Difficulties: “Be careful right here.  It is where most students have problems.”

·         Modeling/Differentiation: I showed you how I came to the answer.  Who has a different way of getting to the same place?”

·         Visual Clues/Different Learning Modality: “Is it possible to literally draw a conclusion?  What could you picture to make connections to….”

·         Adjust Instruction/Scaffolding: “Everybody seems stuck. Turn to a partner and see if you can….We will share results in one minute.  Go.”

·         Breaking into Parts: Let’s break this down and see if that helps get us where we want to go.  What is the first step?”

·         Alternative Explanations: “Let me try a different way of explaining that.”

·         Student-Driven Instruction: “Here is my key question….Take two minutes to write an answer.  We will share your responses soon, so be ready.”

·         Scaffolding: “Rachel, she is stuck.  What helpful advice could you give her right now?”

·         Visual Clues: “Look at this picture on the wall.  It might help you arrive at a better answer.”

·         Persistence: “Think about it a bit Carly.  I’ll come back to you in a few minutes to see what you’re thinking.”

For this Indicator, the key is to constantly check for understanding and then to provide the support and scaffolding for those who haven’t reached mastery.  It’s not easy, but it is at the heart of good teaching.

Have a great week, HSE.

Phil